


Be By Our Side

by AnneBridge



Series: To Build a Home [1]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Jacques is soft af, Olivia is the best guardian, The ending that we deserve, au where no one dies, spoilers for the previous Madame Lulu, spoilers for the survival of the fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-10 06:42:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15943892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneBridge/pseuds/AnneBridge
Summary: Where Olivia Caliban saves the Baudelaires at Caligari Carnival and take them to a safe place.





	Be By Our Side

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re interested in stories with happy endings, then you came to the right place! 
> 
> Okay, before everything else, english is not my first language. This one-shot was translated from portuguese so if you find any mistakes, let me know ;)
> 
> please listen to "Be By Our Side" by The Sweeplings.

Olivia didn’t know why, but something inside her said they would be all right that night. Perhaps it was the immeasurable desire to give a happy ending to those three children, who were sleeping leaning against each other on the back seat of the –now her– cab, pulling a prank on her, because she was only a hot, oscillating flame in the middle of a full life of series of unfortunate events. What advantage did she have, after all?

The blonde wig scratched on her head, and without much effort, she still could smell smoke and the burnt flesh smell impregnating her lungs. She wasn’t happy, much less satisfied with what she had witnessed. She closed her eyes and hold on the steering wheel with both hands, remembering the henchman who fell into the lion's lair instead of her, just right after jumping off the board with Violet and Klaus.

Olivia remembered running with the three of them. To run as if their lives depended on it, and it really did. They got into the car after putting the last box of books in the trunk and managed to get out of Caligari Carnival, before there were only the ashes of their tents.

Another fire caused by Olaf, where he would be unpunished.

She had no idea where the Count and his henchmen might be by now, but she wished it were far from them. Far enough for her and the Baudelaires have a quiet night's sleep, before she could feel the adrenaline rush through her veins again, while they headed toward headquarters.

 _Damn them, all of them!_ She exclaimed, in her mind.

Determined to forget all of that for a few hours, Olivia shook her head, continuing to drive down on the still-missing road. They were in a village called Little Town, a quiet place based on all her research. There was nothing that linked them to V.F.D, so they would probably pass unnoticed. At least that was what she expected.

She parked the car, pulling the handbrake shortly after reading the sign in front of the light yellow building that she had stopped: _Flats for rent_.

She took a deep breath and turned back, intending to wake the children. The three of them slept heavily and had barely moved since they fell asleep, which left her heart tight, but knew that a soft mattress was much better than the seat of her cab.

“Baudelaires.” she called, receiving a grunt from the older sister in response. It made her laugh. “Children, we arrived.”

Klaus was the first to open his eyes, rising himself from the upholstery and waking Violet and Sunny in the process. Olivia waited until the three of them were wide awake to get out of the car, when she could look at them better. Their expressions were tired, but there was something there that the librarian immediately recognized: relief. All she wanted was to leave them with that feeling the rest of their lives.

At some point during the trip they stopped at a gas station and dressed in some of the costumes they had in the bag. Some wigs, clean clothes, some makeup and voilà! If there was something that Madame Lulu had taught Olivia, it was how disguising herself, and she was proud of that.

She approached Violet, adjusted the crooked wig into the girl's head and smiled, while she took the small, sleepy Sunny in her arms, receiving the same smile back. She lifted the last bag off the floor and nodded for the other two brothers to follow.

The inside of the building was old, but not as old as Olivia thought it would be. The reception was illuminated by a single chandelier of wood hanging on the ceiling, besides two lampshades with yellow light on the counter, where an overweight man with a lot of hair was sitting, reading a newspaper in a carefree way.

“Nannette!” the sir yelled as soon as he saw the four of them pass through the door of the establishment. His tone of voice scared Sunny. “We have guests!”

Klaus stared at Violet and shrugged, while the man turned his attention back to the newspaper. Soon a tall, dark-skinned lady with rosy-blonde hair appeared in their sight. She had a warm smile and a scar in the middle of her left eyebrow.

"Hello." she said to the librarian, keeping the smile on her face. "I am Nannette Ortega. How can I help you?”

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Ortega." she also smiled and forced an accent. "My name is Jodie Bowers, and these are my children: Heather, Edwin, and the little Leslie.”

“Buía?” Sunny complained in her baby language, meaning "there wasn’t a better name for me?" or something like that. Violet hold a laugh.

Olivia knew they were being sought out by Olaf, by the newspaper, and by the police. So lying about their identities was part of the camouflage package they had agreed in using. The names came out improvised, she would probably need Baudelaire's help to remember them later.

"We're going to visit our family, but it's too late to travel with three kids." Jodie said, acting so flawlessly that she could work for Broadway. "We decided to stop and rest for tonight.”

Nannette smiled even more, as she clapped one hand to the other in a strange animation for that time.

“You were lucky, we have an apartment available on the third floor." the woman said as she approached the table and mumbled something with the man who was still reading the newspaper. Still smiling, she opened a large beige notebook and began flipping through the pages. “Living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom, is it good for you?” Olivia looked at the children and nodded, smiling. "Great! I'm just gonna need you to sign here.”

After twenty minutes with Nannette holding them at the reception to fill what was missing, the four finally arrived at the apartment where they would sleep that night.

The librarian put the bag on the floor, instructing the two older children to do the same, after letting Sunny sit on the two-seat sofa that was in the living room.

The place was no big deal, but it was enough for them. The small room was composed of a sofa, two armchairs, a dining table, and a large wooden shelf that occupied almost the entire wall near the entrance. On the right, a bench shared that room from the kitchen, and on the left a short hallway with three doors.

Olivia took a few steps, looking at the place. She took off the wig that still made her head scratch and sighed. Her children looked well, tired, but well and safe, as they hadn’t been in weeks.

“How about a shower?” she suggested, seeing that Violet and Klaus hadn’t moved, maybe because of sleepiness or because they were accustomed to act only when they were ordered. That hurt her.

The children smiled in response, right after the older sister caught Sunny on her lap and the three of them headed for the first room in the hallway.

 

**.x.**

 

Quietness. Word that there meant silence, as if nobody _wanted_ to say anything; but in the case of the Baudelaires: as if no one _could_ say anything. Olivia was giving them the time and space they needed, but she couldn’t deny that she was worried.

After dinner – composed of spaghetti and meat from stock of provisions – the older woman cleaned Sunny's face with a napkin, receiving a sonorous "Gah" in response, which she quickly identified as a "thank you for helping me" and she smiled, starting to take the dirty dishes off the table.

While she began to collect the garbage, Olivia wondered what she should do. As much as the place seemed safe and gave the children the feeling of being safe too, they couldn’t stay for long time. She had to take them up to V.F.D's headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains the next morning and help them find one of their parents if they were really alive. It was what Jacques would have done.

_Oh, Jacques._

In the back of her eyes she could feel the burst burning tears at that moment. Thinking about him still hurt like hell. He was gone without her being able to say what she felt, and the memory of his kiss still burned in her memory and heart.

When she had heard from Jacquelyn a few days ago that Jacques was dead, Olivia had to gather her strength to not fall on the floor of Madame Lulu's tent at the same moment.

After running into the hiding taxi behind the park and not knowing how to react for long minutes, Olivia cried. She cried while her heart pounded and her lungs filled with the smell of him still dwelling in the car. That night she slept wrapped in the unique blend of book aroma, hair gel and sandalwood.

If it were up to her, all the blood in Olaf and Esmé’s hands would be avenged. She would do anything to protect the children and put the criminals behind bars, or she wasn’t a librarian.

"Olivia," Violet's voice came low, causing the woman to almost throw a glass down. Olivia turned abruptly, hoping that the girl's voice wasn’t just a hallucination of her stunned head. And she was happy when she saw it wasn’t. "My siblings and I want to thank you.”

“Thank me?” the question came before Olivia could think “Violet, thank me for what?”

Leaving the glass in the sink and sitting back in the chair facing the children, the woman watched when Klaus gave her a weak smile.

"For everything you've done for us so far." said the middle Baudelaire, and the librarian felt her eyes burn again as she shook her head in denial.

"You don’t need to thank me. I still haven’t done everything I should have.” she answered, taking the children's hands in hers and interlacing their fingers in a silent request of comprehension.

“Uzumack!” Sunny shouted, showing her teeth in a smile that melted Olivia's heart.

"But you did something!" Violet translated, pulling her little sister closer. "We could have died if it weren’t for you, so, thank you."

The librarian smiled while she holds the tears that wanted to escape her eyes. Those were the most loving and remarkable kids she had ever known, they had gone through unimaginable things, and yet felt the need to thank for something that was her responsibility.

The three brothers were humiliated, betrayed and renegade by their guardians, those who should care and protect them, or lost them to death. And at that moment, while she stared at the children who had turned her life upside down, Olivia promised herself that things would be different with her. Until they were delivered to one of their parents, she would do whatever it took to make the Baudelaires happy and safe.

Before she could say anything, someone knocked on the door and a silence fell into the small kitchen, the children barely daring to breathe as they looked to the side of the apartment that came the sound.

“Stay here.” whispered Olivia, getting up from her chair. The brothers didn’t obey, following her while she crossed the room.

"It's Olaf," Klaus said in the same tone, "he found us again.”

The woman took a deep breath, not wanting to believe that everything has gone wrong in such a short time. How long it would be like this? The children hoping to find the Count in a ridiculous camouflage every time someone knocked on the door?

Olivia was ready to ask the children to return to where they were, but the person on the other side made itself present before that, hitting the wood harder. They were silent again, silent wishing that whoever was there would give up and leave. However, this didn’t happen.

With her heart pounding in her ears, the librarian walked a few steps and approached the door, stretching a little to look through the magic eye.

Scared and with her hands in front of her mouth, Olivia backed off, letting the tears flow down the way of her cheeks as she unlocked the door and turned the knob. The brothers shouted, intending to prevent their new guardian from putting them directly into the beast’s belly, but they swallowed their words at the very moment the stranger turned out to be:

"Jacques Snicket." Olivia said in a whisper.

"Olivia Caliban." he said equally.

And it didn’t take long for her to advance the last few centimeters between them, holding him in a hug.

She was dizzy, divided between the emotion of not expecting to see him again, and the intoxicating sensation that his smell caused on her. _Stars_ , how she missed it all. Jacques was alive, well, warm and breathing, holding her against his chest, don’t wanting to let go. And Olivia didn’t want to be anywhere but there, in his tight embrace, receiving kisses at her temples, while she just cried in his coat.

Jacques moved his hands from her back to her face, making her face him. Her eyes were red from crying, as were his, but they both had the most beautiful smiles they thought they had ever had in life.

"I thought I'd lost you." Olivia murmured, unable to speak louder, afraid to break the bubble they were in.

He laughed, a weak, relieved laugh as he wiped the tears on her cheeks with his thumb.

"Our story isn’t over yet." Jacques replied, before pressing his forehead against hers in a simple gesture of affection.

Three pairs of eyes stared at the man, not believing he was right there. The Baudelaires approached, still bewildered and with many questions to ask at the same time.

“How is this possible?” Violet asked. “We saw you in the village, they carried you on a stretcher with a sheet, you were dead.”

He smiled at the girl, still holding Olivia close to him with an arm around her waist.

"I had to fake my death or Olaf would really kill me." Jacques explained with a sigh. "Things didn’t happen as we had planned, I'm sorry for leaving you in the dark for so long, but it wasn’t safe.”

“How did you find us?” the question came from Klaus, who carried Sunny in one of his arms.

Violet hurried to lock the door again before they settled on the couch and on the chairs.

“Thatcher and Nannette. ex-volunteers, but still good friends. And I also recognized the taxi outside.” Jacques gave them a half-smile, which seemed to relieve the tension set there before

Sunny came down from her brother's lap and walked over to the couch, stretching out her arms to be caught by the man.

"See you." she said with a smile while she clasped her little hands in his face.

The taxi driver smiled back, interjecting a watery look between the three Baudelaires.

"It's good to see you too, children…"

For a moment the five of them just sat in silence, digesting the information given by Jacques and thinking about what they would ask next. It was late and everyone was tired, they knew, but they needed an answer for their questions once and for all.

"Jacques..." Klaus began, staring at his sister for a second before turning his face away. "Did one of our parents survive the fire?"

He frowned, releasing Sunny from his lap so that she sat down with the brothers again.

"At the Heimlich Hospital" Violet continued, "we found a file, and you talked about a survivor…"

Olivia stared at him, the expression of confusion being replaced by a melancholy, she understood at once. They had the same desire: to put together those children and protect them, to give them a family, but she also understood that some things would be impossible to bring back.

"I'm sorry, Baudelaires." Jacques whispered, and it was as if a bucket of cold water had fallen on the heads of the three children. “The fire I mentioned in that dossier was of the Quagmire mansion, and the survivor is the brother of Duncan and Isadora, Quigley.”

The librarian felt her heart break as she watched Sunny bury her face in the neck of her sister and as Klaus removed his glasses, just to dry his eyes with the back of his hands. The only one that seemed unscathed was Violet, who stroked her little sister's back to keep her cool.

"And where is he?" she asked, her voice as firm as her feelings seemed to be.

 _Poor child_ , Olivia thought, _forced to grow up too fast._

"When I asked Olivia to go to Caligari Carnival, it wasn’t only to keep her safe, but also because I needed the help of the previous Madame Lulu: my sister, Kit." Jacques explained, taking everyone's attention in the room to him. “Quigley is with her now, the Quagmires will be reunited soon.”

Violet nodded slightly, and they all stayed very quiet until Klaus started talking again.

"We still have many questions." he said, his voice failing just a little at the end, forcing himself to sweep all the sadness down the rug.

"And I'm here to answer them." the taxi driver ensured him, arranging his posture on the couch.

While the children began a series of questioning, Olivia stood up and marched into the kitchen, looking for a teapot.

 

**.x.**

 

After handing the hot drink to the man, to the children and serving herself with a cup, she began to pay attention to the clarifications, partly because she wanted to know as much as possible about the organization she had thrown herself, partly because she liked the way his partner explained everything with an almost palpable passion.

It took about two hours for some questions to be answered and certain things starting to make sense. Jacques couldn’t answer everything, they knew, but what was said calmed the children, though.

And as the Baudelaires' eyes began to fall and the blinking lasting longer, Olivia suggested that they should go to bed, leaving her and Jacques alone in that small, quiet room.

She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder, almost as if she wanted to melt their bodies into one. Jacques put his arm around Olivia's body and squeezed her into a hug, making her close her eyes and take a deep breath.

"Promise me this won’t happen again." she said after a few minutes in silence. "Promise me I'll never have to be sad for days by thinking you're dead!"

Jacques, with his free hand, caught her face and lifted up, making her look at him.

"I promise." he said, looking at the woman with an intensity that could almost reach her soul. "And forgive me for making you feel that way."

"You are here," Olivia replied, so low that he could not hear it if he wasn’t paying attention “and that's all that matters now.”

Jacques smiled, before bending to lean his forehead against hers and let their lips brush against each other. Olivia closed her eyes and opened her mouth, gasping for a kiss that didn’t come.

"The day where our enemies will be defeated is coming." the taxi driver whispered against her lips, with the eyes closed and in a lethargic way.

“And then?” the librarian asked, the excitement rushing through her veins for invoking a subject that seemed to have been a lifetime ago. “Marriage? Children?”

Jacques pressed her in his arms, smiling a little more, and she realized that he also kept that moment in his memory.

"Only if we rescue them. All the six.”

Olivia smiled too, moving both hands to his neck and letting their noses touch. Her heart was racing, almost exploding against her chest.

"Then we're halfway there."

He laughed, and when their lips finally touched, it was magical, slow and a little bitter because of the tea. It replaced what was once a feeling of "never again", for the taste of eternity. It was like an oasis in the middle of the desert, numbing her with love and courage to do what they never had chance.

They parted as they needed air, but soon afterwards Olivia lowered the kisses down his jaw until it reached his neck.

"Come to bed" she whispered as she kissed spots on the neck that made him shiver “with me.”

Before the librarian could kiss a lower place, Jacques took her by the shoulders, and when she looked at him, he was gasping

"Olivia..." Jacques tried to say, with a calm voice.

"Jacques" she interrupted him, and for a moment all her courage gave way to a growing blush on her face. “I know what you're going to say, because I know you. You will argue with me, you will say that I deserve much more than a room in a rented apartment, but...” Olivia stopped, breathing deeply, and he couldn’t help but smile, she was right a hundred percent. “I want you here and now, how I will want a thousand years from now, because it's always going to be you and the feeling you bring me, not the place where we are.”

The second their eyes met again, the whole world seemed right. Villains, fires and all existing ignorance were forgotten, leaving only them, a comfortable bed a few feet away and a new feeling rising in their hearts, that the two hardly saw the time to be able to say it out loud.

"You know I'd take you to a castle with a library on each floor if I could, don’t you?” Jacques asked, and she tried to laugh, but no answer was needed.

He kissed her, softly and slowly, although his desire was so urgent that his body hurts. Olivia felt herself being pulled closer and allowed to be carried through the apartment until they entered the room reserved for her. The taxi driver leaned her gently against the door, lowered his hands to her waist and tightened over her blouse, longing for the moment when he would take it fully.

Jacques was her perdition, had always been. From the moment he'd nearly hit her with the taxi at the point of that rickety trolley, to the kiss they'd shared in that vile village, when she thought she would never see him again. He could get her out of herself with the most chaste provocations and the perdition that dominated her was a burning impulse to let herself be in his arms.

No more words were necessary between the two, their bodies talk was enough, combined with the low moans that issued in approval of the touches.

Olivia moved her hands down his chest until she reached the bottom and grabbed the hem of his shirt, her lips pulling away only to she could remove that piece of cloth from his body and throw it somewhere in the dark room. His chest was warm and wide, and she felt her fingers tingle as they paced up and down.

Jacques lowered his head and sucked her neck, hearing her moan softly. His big hands went up to find the buttons of her shirt, unbuttoning them in almost suffocating slowness, and with every piece of exposed velvet skin he followed a trail of kisses, feeling inexplicably excited by having her so close and so his.

A few seconds later, her blouse was also being throwed somewhere, no matter where, and the librarian pulled him back up, needing to kiss him again.

Jacques, wanting to have more of her, wrapped his arms around Olivia's legs and placed her on his lap. The movement made her skirt rise a few feet, while his hands pressed her shoulders and thighs with strength and desire. It took less than a minute for her to lie down with her back against the bed.

The man used one of his hands to support himself against the mattress, not letting all his weight fall on her, while the other caressed the soft skin of her thigh.

He stopped kissing her for a moment, wanting to look at her, and when Olivia opened her eyes and blinked at him, with her hair loose on the sheet and her chest panting, her brown irises seemed to melt of desire, of love, and of something that was only hers. She was even more gorgeous when she gave so much feeling with just one look, and Jacques could be like this forever, lost in the intensity of that woman.

She lifted her face, overcoming the distance between them to lean their noses and kiss him briefly in the mouth, watching him move over her after that.

He kissed her bust before moving his hands to discard her bra, moving to her breasts, running his tongue over a stiffened nipple to tease her a little more. He wanted to kiss her completely, to love every inch of that skin and to show what he felt in the most natural way of being translated.

Olivia moaned in approval, torn between shaving her nails on Jacques' back in excitement or holding his dark hair with her fingers. A simple kiss against her skin caused a rash all over her body, being almost impossible to endure. She couldn’t remember if at any point in her life she had felt all of it at once and with such strength.

The librarian pressed herself closer against him, feeling his hard cock pressed between her legs and she bit her lip, beginning to think about what it would be like to touch him right now. Not wanting to wait any longer, she reached down and opened the button and zipper of his pants, wasting no time sticking one of her hands there and squeezing his cock under his underwear.

Jacques closed his eyes and let the air out of his mouth, lifting his face only to kiss her again. As much as the movements of Olivia's hand on his cock pleased him, he didn’t let her continue for long, because he wanted the focus to be on her.

He stepped back to get rid of the last pieces of clothing, but then returned to her, searching for the clasp of her skirt, removing it as well. Olivia caught her breath with his naked vision in front of her. He was handsome, and she wanted him so much that words wouldn’t be enough to describe.

Olivia tried to make some sense, but Jacques was too good and make her to lose them all, because his hand was running a dangerous way into her panties. He rubbed his thumb against her clit, teasing her for just a second, before getting down to the point where she was wet and inserting a finger slowly inside her.

Jacques moaned at the sensation, she was so wet and hot, ready to have him. He removed his finger, finally taking Olivia's panties off, leaving her naked, and caressing her most sensitive spot, making her shake under him, moaning his name as tightly as she could.

She was gripped by him, shaken and bewildered, as if he were a strong wave, and she, someone too slight at the border of the beach. And that was the best feeling anyone could give her.

The woman opened her eyes to see Jacques nestle between her legs, with a smile framed to his lips that should reflect the smile she was giving. Olivia pulled and kissed him slowly, before pushing him to change positions, riding on him and guiding him deftly inside her.

Their rhythm was slow, but deep, and with each new thrust they were losing the notion of speed and time, letting their minds take them to where they would be safe and could be one.

It was all about finding the calm in the chaos. While they were together, they were untouchable, they were unique, and that was all that mattered.

 

**.x.**

"You should sleep, Olivia." Jacques said sweetly, stroking her naked back with his thumb.

She was lying on his chest, the two covered by the thin sheet, nestled on the mattress and bathed by the pale moonlight streaming through the window.

Moments like that were a gift, and they'd take advantage of it until the last second.

"I don’t want to sleep, wake up and realize this was all a dream." Olivia said sleepily, then narrowed her eyes, as if to frighten away her thoughts. “I don’t want to wake up in Madame Lulu's tent, where the Baudelaires are still in danger and... And you're dead.”

At the same instant, Jacques stopped his movements with his hand, feeling his heart hurt. He felt guilty for all the pain that was caused to her. He wanted to go back in time and do things differently, to prevent Olaf and Esmé from making them fools during their stay in the village. But turning back the clock was impossible, he contented himself with taking a deep breath and trying to calm the woman in his arms.

"Feel that?" he asked, after placing her hand on the left side of his chest, right over where his heart was beating. Olivia murmured in affirmation. “It beats that way for you” she looked up, only to find him already looking at her “is also proof that I am alive and I’m going to be on your side when you wake up, tomorrow and a thousand years from now.”

Olivia smiled, with her watering eyes. She wondered if it would be like this every time, if she would want to cry over all the beautiful words Jacques would tell her, not that it was a bad thing, but she wanted to be able to respond in the same way instead of just shedding some tears.

While she couldn’t, she just let herself be carried away by those feelings and the man lying next to her, touching her lips to what appeared to be the hundredth kiss of that night.

It took a little while for the woman's breath to calm against his neck and she was asleep, aware that he would keep his promise.

Jacques knew there were many things they needed to talk about, that they still had three orphans longing to be together again, and two villains and their troupe were hiding somewhere. The story was about to have its happy ending, because there were noble and well-read people willing to take up the cause.

He also knew in his heart, how he knew how to breathe, that while Olivia and the children were with him, the world would be quiet.

 


End file.
